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- X Shaft from the Pulpit 



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By J. N. KIMBALL 



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A Shaft from the Pulpit 



J. N. KIMBALL 



I do not know how it is at the present time because 
I have not made a deep study of the matter but when 
I was a boy there was not a lad in all the country round 
who did not feel it in his bones that he was cut out to 
be a sailor, that he was born into the world for that sole 
purpose and that therefore it was his duty to defy all 
parental advice, tie his clothes up in a bundle some dark 
night, and crawl out onto the shed from a back window, 
drop to the ground and run away to sea. As a rule the 
door would have given him a much more easy means of 
exit and would have been fully as safe so far as the other 
members of the family were concerned, for they were all 
sleeping soundly in their beds, but the rules of the game 
as laid down by many a sea tale were very explicit on 
the point that the window was the proper card to play 
and so the window it was in every case. When the boy 
came back, which was usually in about three days, he 
crawled into the house in the same way without making 
any noise about it, mindful of the fact that his father 
had retired for the night and that it would be a sin to 
wake him up when it was not at all necessary to do so. 
The prodigal son knew very well that something would 

Copyright 1915 bjr J. N. K iinhM. 



be coming to him even if it were not the fatted calf, but 
he was in no hurry about it, he was content to wait 
until the morning for it, at which time he was sure to 
get it, good and plenty. 

This idea of running off to sea was strongest when 
the boy was about fourteen years of age, a time when 
a boy knows more than at any other period in hi-^ life, 
or at least he thinks he does, which amounts to the 
same thing. In my day this longing to sail the ocean 
blue came to every lad; he was as sure to get it, sooner 
or later, as he was to get the measles or the mumps and 
it is a curious fact that the disease was not confined 
to those who lived near the sea for the boy on the farm 
two or three hundred miles inland, far away from the 
smell of the salt water, was hit just as hard by it. Ijc- 
fore my time I have been told that the idea took a more 
definite form and that not only did the boy want to go 
to sea, but he wanted to for the sole and express pur- 
pose of being a pirate and he used to perfect himself in 
the trade by practicing on his small brothers and sis- 
ters, making them walk the plank and things like that, 
until he was letter perfect in the part, but in my day 
the pirate business seemed to have taken a back seat 
for some reason or other and the Hag with the skull and 
cross-bones was not so much in evidence. Most of my 
chums who made the night Might did so in order to go 
to the "Gold Coast" but to tell the truth I doubt if one 
of them had the least idea of the location of that place 
on the map. 

I never ran oft" myself, and I often wonder why I did 

APR 21 I9i5 



not. I have a sort of feeling that I was kept from doing 
so in some measure because of the experience of one of 
my friends who tried it. He planned his escape weeks 
in advance and told us all about it, so of course he was 
quite a hero in the eyes of the rest of us. He used to 
talk learnedly about gold dust and sandal wood and 
other things that were beyond the most of us and would 
tell us what he would do to the first mate if that indi- 
vidual started in to haze him, all of which was ver}-^ big 
and grand and we stood about with eyes and mouth 
wide open and were ready to fall down and worship 
him ; that is we were for a spell. We knew when he was 
going as everybody should have known for ten miles 
around and the next morning, after hearing of his 
moonlight flight, we talked about him in whispers won- 
dering what we should hear next. It was not just what 
we expected; the next news that came to our ears was 
that he had been brought back home, soundly spanked 
and put to bed and kept locked in his room for a week 
on a bread and water diet. This last, that is the meagre 
diet, might have warmed our hearts with sympathy for 
him if it had not been for the spanking part; there is 
no heroism in being spanked and his fall in our esti- 
mation was something awful. From being a hero he 
became the butt of our rude jokes and when the rain 
came down in torrents some dismal day a kid in short 
pants who would have licked the dust from his shoes 
a short time before would pipe out *'Say, Ned, do they 
have any weather like this on the Gold Coast?" 

I suppose it must have been things like that which 



6 

put a damper on my own ardor and made me think 
twice before acting once mitil I grew old enough to 
possess a trifle of sense. But still I never lost my love 
for the sea. I have it now, only it is a different kind of 
love, it is not so ardent and is more Platonic, as it were, 
and has been so subdued by experience that it is greatest 
when I am furthest away from that same sea, just as 
^ome people love grape fruit and pickled olives. As I 
grew older I came to have a great deal of reverence for 
the chap who wrote about "a life on the ocean wave and 
a home on the rolling deep/' but times change and a man 
changes with them; I have sifted my system through 
with a sieve and gone over it with a fme-tooth comb 
but I cannot lind a trace of that reverence lurking about 
me anywhere at the present time. And there was that 
other chap who warbled about being "rocked in the 
cradle of the deep." I am of the opinion that he v/as a 
fraud and that he did all of his warbling while his feet 
were planted firmly on dry land, and did his sleeping in 
a comfortable bed; at any rate I have been rocked in 
that same cradle and have never been in any shape to 
warble about at the time, in fact I have always felt that 
the Dead March from Saul played on a bass drum 
would be more in keeping with passing events. 

But be all that as it may, in my young days I took 
great delight in going down to the wharf to see the 
stuff which came off the ships which came from foreign 
shores. There was something about the smell which 
had a fascination for me; it was so different from any- 
thing else that ever hit my smellers. I have spent a 



good many days gazing" at some old hulk that lay tied 
to the dock, covered with slime and seaweed and in- 
nocent of paint and polish, her iron work red with rust 
and her sails mildewed and torn, for deep down in her 
hold I knew there were things that had come from out- 
of-the-way parts of the world, from places where no 
one ever had any use for skates or sleds and where the 
high cost of living need cause nobody to worry for the 
people were free from the toll of the baker and the 
tailor. My imagination ran riot at such times and after 
a day on the wharf I used to go home at night and 
dream that I was decked out in a brand-new suit of 
fancy things done in colors all over my body. In fact 
I even went so far as to start some of that tattooing 
stuff on my arms, but it hurt me so much that I gave 
it up before I had half finished the elaborate designs 
I had planned out. Such parts as I did get pricked into 
my hide are there yet ; sometimes I wish they were not 
and at other times I rather like to look at them as relics 
of an age when I saw things through rose-colored 
glasses. 

And when I could coax some member of the crew 
over to the cask' on which I was sitting, bribe him to 
talk with a new clay pipe that cost me one cent and 
get him started on tales of his travels, that was living; 
those were happy days, happier days than I ever expect 
to see again. But how they could lie, those sailors. I 
know it now but I did not know it at the time and would 
not have known it for a fortune. I have said that my 
imagination played pranks with me in those days and 



8 

so it did, but if I now had one-tenth of the iniag-ination 
some of those sailors had I would start in and write 
stories of the sea and Clark Russell would not be in the 
same class with me. And they used to back up all their 
tales with occular proof, too, for in the midst of some 
yarn my narrator would bare his bosom and show me 
mermaids and anchors and stars and full-rigged ships 
and flags in red and blue pricked all over the front of 
him; they were probably done by the old masters on 
South Street but I did not so much as guess it at the 
time and I am glad I did not. 

All this was a long time ago, longer that I like to 
think about, I will confess that, but even now I cannot 
walk along the water front without loafing away hours 
that ought to be devoted to other and better bu.siness, 
looking at the ships that poke their noses clear across 
the street and almost into the windows of the old shops 
on the other side. And at every door and strewn along 
the walk are ancient anchors and anchor chains and 
coils of rope and odds and ends of things that I do not 
know the names of although I know they belong to 
ships; I like to look at them and stand so long that 
sometimes the chap who owns the place comes out to 
look at me out of the corner of his eye although he 
knows that the stuff is too heavy for me to lug off 
any of it. I am not angry with him however, for I feel 
it in my heart that I would like to do just what he has 
an idea that I will do; it is onl}^ the old fascination come 
to life again and for the moment I let it have full swing. 

And then again there is the smell ; I have spoken of 



that already but there is no other perfume that com- 
pares with it and it cannot be described in words. It 
is not exactly spices and odors from Araby, in fact it 
is a good deal other than that, but it is like the smell 
of nothing else on earth and it pleases my nose what- 
ever you may say about it. I suppose it comes from 
the slush bucket and the tar in the ropes and the salt 
which clings to those old second-hand anchor chains 
and things but that does not bother me any, I like it. 
And here is another curious fact; I have spent hours, 
as I have said, roaming about on the water front and 
looking in at all the shop doors and at the ships but in 
the former I have never yet seen a young man, every- 
body is gray and grimy and grizzled and I am glad 
that it is so for the stage setting and the actors suit 
each other down to the ground. They never seem to 
do any business in those shops and I have never yet 
seen a sale made in any of them although I have stuck 
my nose in more than one door trying to catch some- 
body buying something so as to get a line on what the 
stuff was worth and how he carried it away. I suppose 
they must sell things now and then and if they do they 
must also buy things to take the places of those they 
sell, but these transactions are all done when I am not 
on the watch, I am sure of that. 

All this is to impress upon you the fact that I still 
like all things which have to do with the sea. I suppose 
there was not a lad in the land but felt about it as I did 
when I was a boy, but whether that feeling survives 
in other grownups as it did in me I do not know. My 



10 

views have changed a trifle to be sure since I was a boy 
and I have become more practical, as is but natural, for 
I have had more experience. I love the sea now, but 
only when I stand on the shore and look at it. I have 
no wish to run off and be a cabin boy for some grouchy 
old sea dog for I have been rocked in the cradle of the 
deep and rocked hard, and I have lived a life on the 
rolling wave to some extent, all the extent I care for, 
1 think; I do not want any more if I can help it. 

My first experience on the water took some of the 
colors from my rainbow. When I was a lad in my teens 
a party was made up to go on a fishing trip about thirty 
miles oft" shore on a tug and I was invited to go along 
with some forty other victims. I did not sleep any the 
night before; it was an event in my short life and I 
preferred not to undress and go to bed but to sit up and 
think about it until it was time to start which was 
about two o'clock in the morning, then I went down to 
the wharf and got on board of the tug with the rest, 
and we let go the hawsers and started off. I am not 
going to detail the voyage for there are some parts 
which would not look nice in print and other parts 
when I was not in a condition to do any detailing; it 
is enough to say that the only person on board who 
did not pay tribute to Father Neptune was the engineer. 
We were out twenty-four hours and so many of those 
hours as I was alive were full of misery; during the 
time I was dead it did not matter so much, of course. 
I know that I was washed from stem to stern by the 
sad sea waves and rolled about the decks and mixed up 



11 

with fish lines and bait and stools and everything else 
that was loose and then I was washed back again to 
the forward end of the boat when the thing jolted that 
way but I remember that it did not trouble me because, 
as I have said, I was dead. And I know I must have 
reached home at last, else I could not be here now, but 
how it was done has always remained a deep, dark and 
dire mystery to me. It was a fishing excursion, as I 
have said, and somebody caught some fish I suppose, 
but not I, although I caught everything else which was 
coming and going. It was bad enough while we were 
on the way to the fishing grounds but worse when we 
got there. About the last thing I remember was the 
rattle of the chains as the anchor went over the bow and 
then, to all intents and purposes, I died. I do remem- 
ber one other thing; in one of my lucid moments, which 
were few and far between, somebody whispered in my 
ear that if I would stand up I could see Block Island 
over the weather bow. That was foolish, for I could 
not have stood on my feet if they had promised me a 
view of the North Pole. I had other things to think 
about besides the scenery, but as the tug happened to 
slant over on its side about then of course I rolled to 
the bulwarks as usual and on my way I caught sight 
of something black sticking out of the water away oflf 
to the westward; it was only a flitting glimpse for in a 
minute the boat tipped the other way and I started 
to roll back again. If they had told me that what I 
saw was an island in Mars I would not have disputed 
it, I had too many other things on my mind and I got 



12 

rid of the idea as quickly as possible just as I had been 
getting rid of everything else all the forenoon. 

That was the first time I ever saw Block Island and 
if anyone had told me that I should spend a month on 
that island every year for twenty-five years I would 
have killed him then and there. No, that is not so, 
I would not because I did not have the strength to do 
so, other than that it would have been wise for him to 
make his will. However, such is the fact and I have 
lived on that little island away ofif in the ocean for more 
than two years of my life in the aggregate. Being al- 
most a native I came to know all the other natives and 
as they all got their daily bread out of the sea of course 
I tried to get a little of mine in the same way. I never 
made a huge success of it for good and sufficient rea- 
sons, but it was a pleasant life all the same. If you go 
to that tight little island now you will not be able to do 
as I did because motor boats and gasoline engines have 
changed things completely; for the better I suppose, 
but it goes against the grain to think it. In the old 
days the people who came from the mainland were few 
in number but now the island is a summer resort of no 
mean proportions and fishing for summer boarders has 
taken the place of dropping the lines for cod or jigging 
for mackerel. 

But I must get back to my story and to start right I 
want to say that while my title may have deceived you 
if it has done so it is not my fault as it is a right and 
proper one and to set your mind at rest on the point I 
will say that a "pulpit" is a thing built on the end of the 



13 

bowsprit of a boat and is made of a board to stand on 
with an iron railing to keep you from falling into the 
briny deep every time the boat gives a lurch. I do not 
know who gave it the name but he was a genius for 
naming things all the same. It is used solely for the 
taking of the wary swordlish and in the days of which 
I speak a pulpit was found on all the Block Island fish- 
ing boats. Those boats were like no others and hardly 
a specimen now exists, all having been displaced by mo- 
tor craft. They were painted green and were pointed at 
both ends like a dory. They were probably the most sea- 
worthy boat it is possible to build and they would live 
through a gale that would be death to many a larger 
craft. The rudder was at one end and the pulpit was 
built on a bowsprit at the other. Their sole use was 
for fishing, they were not made for the carrying of pas- 
sengers and as the fish which were caught on board 
were cleaned on the spot, after a good many years of 
hard service they had a smell which was their own pri- 
vate property and belonged to nothing else. It was 
not like roses and violets to one who made his first 
trip, but if he kept it up long enough he got used to 
it and of course did not mind it so much. I have not 
smelled it for a long time but I should know it again if 
I should ever run across it, in fact if I were on top of 
Pike's Peak and should get a whiff of that odor I should 
at once exclaim "there goes a Block Island fishing 
boat;" thus custom breeds habit in a man. 

As may be guessed the trip I am to tell of was one in 
search of swordfish. I was urged to go by my friend, 



14 

the captain of the sloop, and as I had never been present 
at the capture of one of these huge fishes I rather 
fancied the idea and seized the invitation to go out 
after them w^ith avidity. There was not so much avid- 
ity the next time I was invited, probably I had used my 
whole stock the first time, but that is getting ahead of 
my yarn. Nobody ever knew a fishing boat to start out 
on time, but for many a generation it had been the cus- 
tom for the fisher folk to gather at the wharf at three 
o'clock a. m. and I was told to be on hand promptly at 
that time. I set the alarm and then stayed awake all 
night to be sure I should hear it, as is my custom yet, 
and when it went off I got up and made a cup of cofTee 
which I drank and then crept out into the night. It 
was dark. That sentence does not seem to cover it. 
It was as dark as the inside of a stone jug. That does 
not seem to fit either for I think it was darker than that 
and I had a mile to go along the edge of the bluft where 
a single false step would make me a fit subject for the 
coroner. I did not hurry for there was no wind and I 
knew we had to have a wind or we could not go out and 
there were other reasons why haste seemed useless, one 
of which was the fact that my accident policy had 
lapsed. The pathway was narrow but worn smooth 
and hard and was a thin line of gray, like the thread of 
a spider drawn along the grassy edge of the clift", be- 
yond which was a profound depth of blackness. I could 
tell by the feel, as they say, the moment my feet di- 
verged from that path. I knew every turn and rock 
in it and was surpised, when I had gotten about half 



15 

way, to run across a new boulder that I had never seen 
before. Dark as it was I could still see a dim black 
shape loom up across the gray line of the path. It 
staggered me a bit for I had not supposed there were 
men enough on the island to lift such a stone and place 
it where it was. I judged I had lost my reckoning and 
so I came to a dead stop and took my bearings. I lay 
down and reached for the edge of the cliff, it was there 
all right, less than a foot away. Then I put out my 
hand and felt of that rock; it was warm to the touch 
and, wonder of wonders, seemed to be covered with 
hair. I stood up and gave it a kick and it slowly rose 
until it tovv^ered above me like a mountain, then it gave 
a loud bellow and disappeared in the darkness to the 
left. It was only a cow which had lain down across 
the path in peaceful slumber but in that dense blackness 
it seemed bigger than an elephant. It scared me out 
of my wits for a minute or two and when I came to my 
senses and was about to take my revenge it had gone. 
Where that cow came from and where it went and why 
it had lain down there with its nose over the blufif has 
always been a puzzle to me. After I got my breath I 
pulled myself together and trudged on, trying to reason 
it all out. Maybe it came to the bluff to listen to the 
pounding of the surf on the shore forty feet below, may- 
be not. At any rate she showed no sense in going to 
sleep in that spot, for if she had got restless in the night 
and turned over during her nap she would have rolled 
off the bluff and broken her neck. However I have 
never seen a cow roll over and perhaps they do not 



16 

do it, but all the same I still suspect that cow escaped 
from some asylum for she had all the ear marks of an 
inmate of one. 

I met no more wild animals and finally reached the 
wharf in safety to find all the boats tied up and the 
members of our crew sitting about on benches talking 
about the weather and whistling for a wind. At about 
four o'clock a breeze of the lightest, softest kind fanned 
my cheeks and rippled the surface of the water in the 
harbor which up to that time had been as smooth as 
glass and we made our way on board, hoisted the sails 
and drifted at a snail's pace out through the breach in 
the breakwater and into the open sea. 

I wish I could find words to describe the stillness of 
such a morning on the ocean. There is absolutely no 
sound to break the utter silence save the steady boom 
of the swell as it strikes the shore and which grows less 
and less distinct as we leave land, the creaking of the 
blocks in the rigging as the sails, not yet full of wind, 
flap idly to and fro with the roll of the boat, the gentle 
swish of the water lapping the sides of the craft, hissing 
softly as it leaves the stern, and beyond these there is 
nothing for the crew are as yet hardly awake and no- 
body says a word. Even when one has occasion to go 
about the deck he does so with a sort of gliding motion 
as if unwilling to disturb the profound quiet of the place. 
For half an hour we drifted lazily along in this fashion, 
slowly edging away from the land, then the tiny puffs 
of air from the southeast became more frequent, the 
booms swung away from the side of the boat, the sails 



17 

bellied out and the sheets drew taut and we began to 
bowl along with a slight tilt to the deck. There was a 
good bit of sea, just enough to make us rise and fall 
like one swinging in a hammock. Now I never did 
like to swing in a hammock and always get out directly 
if anyone sets it going, but there I could not get out, or 
rather I did not think it was wise to do so for the walk- 
ing was not good. It was not long before the effects 
of that confounded, slow, up-and-down motion began 
to tell on me and after standing it as long as I could I 
went below. That was where I made a mistake. I 
found the only bunk in the cabin already taken by an- 
other chap who had come with us and the only place 
left for me was a shelf about three feet long which ran 
along the side. I am more than three feet long but I 
was in no condition to find fault. I had to He down and 
so I got up on that shelf and tried to curl my legs up 
under me but it did not work. At the end of the shelf 
was a cook stove and not being fastidious I used that as 
a rest for the lower end of me; it was almost as good 
as sleeping in a Harlem flat. 

For a time I lay there and as the boat stood up on 
its stern I could look out of the cuddy hole and down 
to the very bottom of the vast deep and when the boat 
tilted the other way and stood on its head with its tail 
in the air, I could see the whole galaxy of stars through 
that same hole. As the bilge water in the hold got 
stirred up I began to wish I had not taken that coffee 
for I knew it was going to be a sheer waste on my part 
of good material. Then I began to wish I had not eaten 



18 

those lobsters the day before, they were fine lobsters 
too and cost money, and slowly as time went on (every 
minute seemed an hour) I repented of things I ate last 
week and then of things I ate the week before that. 
Finally my repentance drifted away back to the month 
before last and things were brought to my memory 
that I had failed to take note of at the time I ate them. 
At length having little more to fear on that score and 
having nothing left on my mind or my stomach I fell 
into a drowse and slept until some one pounded on the 
hatchway and shouted down for me to get up and come 
on deck to see the sun rise. It woke me up and roused 
my temper. I told them that I was not at all curious to 
see that sort of thing, that the sun had come up a good 
many times without my help since I came into the 
world and I guessed it could get along without me this 
trip; of course if they insisted and would bring the sun 
down to me maybe I would look at it just to please 
them, but in no other event would I stir from my perch. 
I also told them that from the time I had spent on that 
shelf I judged it must be sunset anyway and if they 
wanted to go crazy over an old sunset they might do 
so and be hanged. But I was not to lose the sight for 
two burly fellows came down and lifted me off my shelf 
and fired me out through that cuddy hole, landing me 
on the deck in a heap like a sack of oats; then they sat 
me up against the mast and propped me in place with a 
coil of rope. I was mad and was ready to do things and 
I would have done them too, only they were stronger 
than I because thev retained all the eats they had ac- 



19 

cumulated for some time past while I was hollow, like 
a drum. I had to forgive them and did so the more 
readily because I was just in time to note an incident 
which has clung to my memory ever since. 

There were two other landsmen on board, one of 
them was a friend of mine, the occupant of the berth to 
whom I have already referred and who had crawled out 
on deck a short time before, and the other a lad of about 
fourteen, a farm boy from away back in the hills, who 
was on the water for the first time in his life. My friend 
lay on his back on the deck from sheer inability to do 
anything else, he was sick, maybe even more so than 
I was, and the boy, poor fellow, seemed to be as sick as 
the two of us put together. My friend was something 
of a wag and between his spasms he lay and watched 
the top of the mainmast sway to and fro with the roll 
of the boat. Finally he turned over and asked the lad 
if he knew how to climb a tree and the latter groaned 
out that he did. "Well, then," said my friend, "here is 
a chance for you. I will give you a dollar if you will 
climb up and put your hand on top of that mast." 

Now if you know anything about a New England 
farm boy you know that a dollar is a mighty sight of 
money to him and if he ever gets hold of one it is be- 
cause he has given value received in hard labor for 
every cent of it. The boy in question was too ill to 
stand but he crawled on hands and knees to the foot of 
that swaying pole and then inch by inch made his way 
to the top. When he got down again he grabbed that 
big silver dollar and stowed it away in his pocket with- 



20 

out a word, then he flopped down on the deck and 
started in on the same job he had been busy at all the 
morning. The mere telling of it sounds tame enough, 
I will admit, but it was an example of pure grit second 
to none I have ever seen. To put it mildly the boy was 
at least as sick as I was, but if five hundred dollars had 
been tacked to the top of that mast to be mine for the 
getting it would be there now for all of me; I like 
money well enough but there are times when I can do 
without it and that was one of those times. 

But that was not what those ruffians dragged me out 
of the cuddy hole to see. They wanted my expert opin- 
ion about the sun and I do not blame them for it de- 
served it, and from a better judge. My first glimpse 
showed me the father of light just lifting his forehead 
over the edge of the horizon and the whole eastern sky 
was deluged with reds and yellows and oranges and 
purples such as could not be mixed on the pallet of any 
painter on earth. As the sun crept slowly above the 
rim of the sea the colors faded and he alone stood forth 
in brilliant red, looking like a red hot ball rolling along 
the edge of the world. And then I turned about and 
looked back at the land we had left ; it was so far away 
that I could see but a faint blurr but it was a pretty 
sight, an opal set in the bosom of the sea and changing 
its color every second with the changing position of 
the sun. Every wave between us and the eastern hori- 
zon was tipped with a border of gold and as the wind 
caught the spray from their tops it went flying before 
it like a shower of diamonds. Even the gray and som- 



21 

bre sea gulls reflected the universal hue and looked like 
the painted denizens of some tropical forest. It was 
well worth all I had gone through with and there can 
be no greater praise than that. 

The fresh breeze in my face soon made me feel a 
trifle better and when the time came to open the lunch 
buckets I was ready to take a feeble interest in the con- 
tents of mine. The only fault I found with it was the 
poverty of the outfit; it did not seem to have just the 
things I wanted at the time. We were now eight or 
ten miles off the shore and on the ground where it was 
expected we would pick up a fish or two. The crew 
ate breakfast and the captain took his place in the pul- 
pit with a harpoon resting in front of him on the iron 
railing. A member of the crew shinned up one of the 
masts and tied himself there in a sort of chair made for 
the purpose; another took the tiller and the rest stood 
about and kept both eyes open, hoping to be the first to 
get sight of game. The swordfish is an ugly brute in 
more ways than one. He is not at all pretty as fishes go 
and he has a sword some two or three feet long growing 
straight out of the end of his nose and forming a part 
of his upper lip, as it were, and he knows how to use 
it for business purposes when occasion requires. He is 
the deadly enemy of the whale and I once saw a battle 
royal between a whale and a swordfish which beat any 
contest I ever saw in the past or expect to see in the fu- 
ture. The only way the whale can get the better of his 
enemy is to breach, that is to throw himself entirely out 
of the water and fall with all his weight upon the fish: 



22 

he weighs a few tons and if he has good luck and lands 
in the right spot he wins. In the case I saw it looked 
as if a half block of buildings suddenly threw itself 
twenty feet into the air from the ocean and came down 
in a huge splash. I do not know which won the battle, 
but as I saw neither of them after that I presume that 
the fish got the worst of it and was either smashed 
into a pulp or retired from the conflict. Many and 
many a vessel has put into port with a swordfish's 
sword sticking in its bottom planks, the fish having 
taken the craft for a whale and tried to puncture it. 

A swordfish weighs anywhere from 200 to 1,000 or 
more pounds and its color is black. It has a black fin 
on top of its back and when at peace with the world 
it loafs along with a part of that fin out of the water. 
That black fin was what we were looking for and it is 
strange how quickly the eye will detect that tiny black 
spot in the vast world of water. We sailed about for 
an hour or two, taking no thought as to direction and 
had about come to the conclusion that our voyage was 
to be of no avail when the man at the top of the mast 
yelled to throw the tiller over and pointed with his 
grimy finger to the south; he was so much higher up 
than we were that he had the advantage of us in the 
matter of seeing things, the fish being at least two miles 
away. Off we went on the larboard tack and it was not 
long before we were close to the object of our search. 
Now all was excitement, although there was perfect 
quiet on board. The captain poised his harpoon in his 
hand and made sure that the line which was tied to the 



23 

iron ran free and back to the tub on deck where it was 
coiled, some six hundred feet of it, in such shape that it 
would run out without a hitch. The man at the helm 
took firm hold of the tiller and eased her up into the 
wind or let her fall ofif as the orders came from the cap- 
tain. Much depends on the skill of the man at the helm 
because the pulpit has to be placed almost directly over 
the fish before the harpoon can be used, this latter being 
half thrown and half pushed. We were just coming 
up into the wind in a position which would allow the 
captain to strike when the fish gave a start and darted 
away a few lengths of the boat. Here was the entire 
work to be done over again and with care too for if our 
movements had been the cause of the change of base 
of that fish he would be on the watch for us and would 
be ready to dodge again and again until we lost him. 
There was nothing to do but to try again so we got into 
a position where luft'ing up into the wind would bring 
us on top of him. This time all went well; inch by inch 
we crawled toward that black fin until the end of the 
bowsprit was almost over it and then the captain's arm 
was seen to lunge forward and the harpoon shaft went 
overboard while the line ran out at a lightning pace. 
Somebody threw over the cask and we came up into the 
wind and sailed off away from the spot for fear that the 
fish might get ugly and come up through the bottom 
of our boat and sink us, a thing that has been done more 
than once. 

Away went the cask bobbing about like a cork on the 
waves until after a time it seemed to stand still and then 



24 

the real business of getting that fish began. A boat 
which we carried on deck was put over the side and in 
it was put a lance, sharp as a razor, then one of the 
crew got into the small boat and pulled ofif in the direc- 
tion of the cask; it was his duty to take in the line 
slowly, leading the fish up by degrees, and when within 
striking distance to give his quietus with the lance. 
Sometimes the thrust of the harpoon iron will kill or 
entirely disable a fish but in other cases, as in this in- 
stance, it simply holds him at the end of the rope. We 
lay about a hundred yards from the cask to watch the 
performance and it was worth watching, in fact, we got 
more of a show than we paid for. Slowly and with 
great care the man in the small boat pulled in the har- 
poon line hand over hand; he could feel the fish but of 
course it was far too heavy and too lively to be pulled in 
by main strength. Then came what was near being a 
tragedy. The man in the small boat sat on the middle 
seat with his head bent forward slowly coiling the rope 
as he drew it up when, without notice and without giv- 
ing any indication of his movements in advance, the 
fish darted from the bottom of the sea straight at the 
under side of the small boat, hitting it fair in the center 
and coming up through the bottom as though that bot- 
tom had been made of paper. The sword struck the man 
in the boat at the bottom button of his vest, ripped ofi' 
every button on that garment and broke the skin on his 
chin just a trifle; then the fish sank down out of sight 
again. The man grabbed off his coat and thrust it into 
the hole in the boat and yelled for help, for strange to 



25 

say, though he had lived on the island all his life and 
was a fisherman by trade, he could not swim a stroke. 
We made all possible effort to reach him and did so 
just as the boat was getting so full of water that it was 
about to sink. He climbed aboard and we took a turn 
of the boat's painter around a cleat and sailed away, 
fearful lest his majesty might try another venture with 
the larger craft for a target. As soon as we were out of 
the danger zone we lifted the small boat aboard and 
tacked a piece of tin over the hole in its bottom so as 
to make it water tight and making out the cask again 
bobbing on the surface a mile or so off steered towards 
it. Again the small boat was put over and the same 
man got into it and rowed to the cask. Slowly and 
carefully he pulled in the harpoon line and this time he 
had better luck. He raised the fish in a fairly peaceful 
frame of mind close to the edge of his boat and with one 
thrust of the sharp lance the thing was over. 

If there were any mermaids roaming about they are 
probably talking yet about the yells that came from our 
passengers, my friend, the farm boy and myself. We 
sailed alongside and after rigging up a block and falls 
lifted the huge carcass on deck. As I remember it now, 
it seemed as if he was a hundred feet long and weighed 
two tons but I suppose that ten or twelve feet including 
his sword, would be nearer the mark for length and that 
he weighed about six hundred pounds. He was built like 
a torpedo and his war head looked about as dangerous. 
When he is in a hurry to go somewhere I doubt if there 
is anything else that swims which can catch him and 



26 

the whole finny tribe give him the right of way. His 
meat is white and firm and the people of Boston eat 
him; I have eaten him myself many times and I applaud 
their judgment. 

What a fish it was! I could not help feeling that it 
was almost a sin to take the life of such a monster and 
might have been inclined to shed a few tears over his 
bier if he had not looked so much like a wicked old 
pirate as he lay tied to the rail. 

We cruised about all the rest of the morning but 
finally the sea became so rough that we could not see 
things and had to give it up. The crew, all but the man 
at the helm, sat about on coils of rope and pieced out 
their breakfast from what was left in their buckets and 
the rest of us, as the water grew rougher and rougher, 
got rid of what little we had eaten of ours. Then the 
work of getting our catch ready for the market was be- 
gun. In the old days the fisherman used to cut oft" the 
head and throw it overboard, sword and all, but he does 
not do that any more, or at least not until he has cut 
off the sword and taken out the boney eye sockets 
which find a ready sale to summer visitors and sou- 
venir hunters. The sword is scraped and polished and 
is often carved and painted as well and the eyes are sold 
to ladies for jewelry boxes and pin cushion cases. 

The cleaning took a half hour or so and then every- 
thing was made spick and span and we came about and 
ran before the wind straight for home. While the ex- 
citement was at its height I forgot all about the rolling 
and pitching of the boat and enjoyed the fun as much as 



27 

any of the crew but when it was all over I had a relapse 
and fell into a condition where I should have been glad 
to welcome the torpedo of a submarine. I was like the 
fellow in the story who was at first awfully afraid he 
would die and as time went on was equally afraid that 
he would not. But I am lucky in one respect and that 
is that my insides behave themselves the moment I set 
foot on land. I have known those who feel the motion 
of the boat for days and weeks after a trip on the water. 
However, we were headed for land and my agony 
would soon be done. That was the thought which 
passed through my mind, but it was counting my chicks 
before the eggs were laid. Out of the southwest came 
a black bank of fog and it covered us like a blanket, 
while the wind, which up to that time had been fresh 
and right astern, veered around on our quarter and then 
all of a sudden seemed to remember a job it had left un- 
done in some out-of-the-way corner of the world and 
started off to attend to it and we were left rolling like 
a log in that dense fog with just headway enough to 
keep us pointed toward shore and unable to see a boat's 
length ahead. My friend was right when he advised 
me to cheer up for there was nothing so bad that it 
could not be worse. The only comfort I had during 
the rest of the trip came from the fact that misery loves 
company and I took a devilish sort of delight in taking 
note of his. We were in some danger but that did not 
trouble me, I left that to the crew and was rather glad 
of it because they had not been sick. We were in the 
path of the homeward bound fishing fleet and more 



28 

than once the black hull of some schooner loomed up 
for an instant dead ahead and was gone again like a 
sort of marine ghost. It got on the nerves of the crew 
and punished them for the unkind remarks they had 
thrown at me during the day. They were afraid of be- 
ing cut down and left to drown while so far as I was 
concerned nothing would have pleased me more. About 
ten o'clock at night the fog lifted for a spell and gave us 
our position about half a mile from the light on the end 
of the breakwater, and in a half hour we had sailed 
through the breach and into the basin and were tied up 
at the wharf. 

As I remember it that was the most delightful mo- 
ment of the trip. I am glad I went, just as I am glad to 
have seen a nice moving picture, but nobody wants to 
see the same picture twice. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




